Letter: Committed effort made FTD even better

On behalf of the St. Croix Valley Master Gardeners and Diana Alfuth, horticulture agent for the UW-Extension Office, our heartfelt thanks to the Caliva family at Earthworks for its help in providing trees, shrubs and flagstones for our “Gardening for Life” exhibit at the center of the Progress Pavilion for Farm Technology Days at the Roger and Bev Peterson farm.

Not only did Earthworks provide the trees, shrubs and flagstone, but also set them in place and assisted us with a landscape plan that definitely raised the bar very high for future Master Gardeners in other counties hosting Farm Tech Days to achieve excellence in horticulture.

As the sweat dripped from Earthworks employees managing heavy flagstone in the 90-degree heat, the smiles and joy of being a part of Farm Tech Days was evident. After the rain left the roads in Tent City almost impossible to drive on, picking up the heavy flagstone again may have been a different matter!

We are very fortunate in this community to have the Caliva family at Earthworks working so hard to help us extend a warm and appealing welcome to the thousands of people from our neighboring states as well as those in Wisconsin who were not only interested in new farming innovations but also looking for a community to educate their children.

It would be remiss of me to not extend a big thanks to Judy Wiff, Steve Dzubay and many others from the Rivertown Newspaper Group for their help and excellent coverage of Farm Tech Days. It would be impossible to mention the countless businesses and individuals that contributed, but they are all to be commended.

Tags: opinion, letters, farmtech, weather